Teaching math through culture.
Many cultural designs are based on mathematical principles. This software, including a Virtual Bead Loom, will help students learn standards-based mathematics as they simulate the original artifacts, and develop their own creations.

Cherokee Messenger- Aug. 1995 Prior to settlement by Europeans, all North American Indians seem to have shared an appreciation for beads. At least eight thousand years before Europeans crossed the Atlantic, Indians were making, wearing, and trading beads of shell, pearl, bone, teeth, stone, and fossil crinoid stems.

Students of the American Indians and of Western history are familiar with the elaborate breastplates of long, light-colored,
tubular beads worn by many prominent Plains Indian men that have been depicted in photographs taken since about 1870. Yet the
story of how, when, and where these picturesque ornaments originated and how the custom of wearing them was diffused widely
among the Plains Indians and their neighbors has never been told. A Study in Indian and White Ingenuity By John C. Ewers Hairpipe Breastplate Anthropological Papers, No. 50 From Bureau of American Ethnology BULLETIN 164, pp. 29-85, pls. 13-37. United States Government Printing Office, Washington : 1957 Smithsonian Institution Libraries Electronic Edition 1996

HandThoughts is an educational, scholarly research resource site and magazine about beads, beadwork, beaded objects. Our mission emphasizes a poly-cultural perspective. Our links pages, now being revised, include extensive resources about Native Peoples' beadwork and beads, including early trade, contemporary bead art, and museum/gallery exhibitions of Native American/First Nations bead-related topics. We are also building links pages on archaeological looting, racism, and social action.

Many First Nations in Québec and Canada have long practiced beadwork. This art has become a very real tradition for two Iroquois nations in particular, the Mohawks, who live near Montreal, and the Tuscaroras, who live on the American side of Niagara Falls. This website and the McCord Museum exhibition that inspired it - Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life - are based mainly on the beadwork of these two nations. ... Be sure to visit the Kid's Zone here!

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Oneida Women earned an important part of the family income by selling their artwork to non-Natives at tourist centers such as Niagara Falls and Saratoga Springs. Oneidas and other Iroquois created a new style for tourists which featured floral designs composed of glass beads. The raised beaded designs were applied to new shapes such as handbags, pincushions, needle cases, and wall pockets. Most of these objects were intended to be worn as accessories to women's clothing or to be displayed in Victorian parlors.

The Society was formed in 1981 to foster research on beads of all materials and periods, and to expedite the dissemination of the resultant knowledge. Membership is open to all persons involved in the study of beads, as well as those interested in keeping abreast of current trends in bead research. The Society publishes a biannual newsletter, The Bead Forum and an annual journal, Beads. Contents of the newsletter include current research news, requests for information, responses to queries, listings of recent publications, conference and symposia announcements, and brief articles on various aspects of bead research.

When the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez landed on the coast of Mexico in the spring of 1519, he had glass beads along with other European trade goods. In 1622, a glass factory was built near Jamestown, Virginia. Less than a year later, the factory was destroyed by a raiding party of Indians. Very few of the beads made in the Jamestown factory are believed to exist today.